This just in. President Bush has declared Monday, September 12, to be a national day of voodoo, on which Americans are urged to make small doll-like representations of hurricane Katrina, and then to stick pins into it, thus crippling it and all future storms. The President specifically stresses that poking the hurrricane in the eye is particularly effective.
In other news, President Bush has also declared September 16th a national day of prayer. Finally some real help!
September 9th, 2005 at 3:16 am
I am speechless! Warning the following site may cause you spit your coffee all over your keyboard, or put your fist through you screen.
http://pptkids.org/ the Presidential Prayer Team for Kids
Maybe we should blame the kids for not praying hard enough?
September 9th, 2005 at 6:43 am
Well that’s just great Dave. I’m typing this from our home office because my laptop is now a smouldering heap after I threw it across the room after I clicked on your link!
Truly amazing. The whole thing is pretty laughable, but these words just got me the most: “…the very best thing we can do is to pray. And get others to pray.”
Kind of expains why Bush didn’t feel like he needed o mobilize enough people quickly - that wasn’t the best thing to do clearly.
September 9th, 2005 at 8:27 am
According to last night’s Daily Show, it seems more than a bit ironic to have a national day of prayer to mourn…an act of God! They suggested a national day of shunning instead…
September 9th, 2005 at 8:34 am
We need to take the fight to the enemy, who is, obviously, God. Bush wants you all to know that the lesson of Katrina is that we need to pray more, much more. We must take strong highly visible action, like having travelers stop for a “moment of silence” when passing through metal detectors at airports and when getting their drivers license renewed. Look for the “support our payers” magnetic car decals, coming soon. Remember, W is for prayer, so if you are against W, then you are against prayer. Are you one of those who would stomp of the religious freedom of our leaders by denying their right to tell us to pray? We must support freedom by coercing prayer.
I have learned from an anonymous government source that God has found refuge in certain African nations. Intelligence has traced Katrina and other hurricanes back to Africa, where they are launched disguised as small storms. Africa continues to produce large quantities of heat, the basic ingredient that fuels deadly hurricanes. It appears that the U.N. lacks the will to deal with the situation, so we may have to defend our national interests ourselves. (The fact that many African nations produce oil is a coincidence.)
Gavin
September 9th, 2005 at 8:40 am
Dave: I read your warning, but I still followed the link…
They’re being a little selective in their Jefferson quotes though, I think.
September 9th, 2005 at 12:56 pm
Is that link for real? Someone must have made that for a joke! I can’t believe the president of the United States has joined in the brainwashing and cult indoctrination of young minds to medieval rituals of religion. Does he not understand that 9/11 happened because of a cult religion that starts their children praying at 4 years of age? To try and convince children of such idiocy before they have a chance to develop and make up their own mind is criminal in my opinion!
September 9th, 2005 at 4:03 pm
The prayer session will follow the 9/11 anniversary commemoration, correct? If so, expect one massively concentrated faux-patriotic religious extravaganza to repair the Bush&Co image, embolden the ’stay the course’ doctrine, and expose the traitorous godless lefties for their insistence on ‘blame games’, causing the decline and destruction of New Orleans, and American Civilization in general. The stench of hypocrisy will likely be high and its execution masterful.
Is it true that Laura Bush recently called the hurricane Corinne instead of Katrina? Wow, that would show true disconnection. Gotta make sure you pray against the correct ‘acts of God’….
September 9th, 2005 at 4:30 pm
The Presidential Prayer Team (for grownups as well as kids) is real. But it’s not sponsored by the White House, it’s a bunch of independent operators.
September 9th, 2005 at 6:46 pm
I thought the link was some mind of parody or joke but seems it is real. Definitely creeped me out. ‘Quantum mirror’ above sums it up nicely I think. The only possibilities are:
(i)God wanted it to happen;
(ii) God could not stop it happening;
(iii)God did not care enough to stop it happening;
(iv) There is no God and it was a natural phenomena with people and property just getting in its way.
For any of these, praying is not going to have any effect I would say.
September 11th, 2005 at 12:04 pm
There is something to be said for magical rituals and stuff the placebo affect and all… But ummmm…. They burned Joan for hearing the voice of God or the sants or whatever… Can we burn Bush??? PLEASE?! oor atleast lock him up in a psych ward with all the other schizos that hear voices… As for this bit about prayer… Prayer is all fine and good… But uhhh money to fix the levees would have been better. I have had enough of this idiot. Not responding to a major crisis smacks of reason for empeachment. (Unlike screwing one’s 19 year old intern, that smacks of prison time for rape of a damn near minor) However i see no reason one shouldn’t still be president from a jail cell…. I would hope this would show the world who this dope truly is. Unfortunately i think all it will show is how stupid americans can be especially the uber extremist relious ones. Its not religion that ruins the world…. Its human s taking religion to the extremes. I encourage everyone to vote in the future so we don’t get another nut job that thinks he speaks for God and hears God’s voice. Please for all that is holy…. I won’t be praying i will be passing out fliers and educating to get the results i am hoping for. Republicans scare me…. Let them go die in iraq and leave the rest of us alone already!
September 12th, 2005 at 4:52 am
Hi…I’m a Presidential Prayer Team Kid . I have a PPT-K Agnus Dei Level 3 button. I wear it every day. Though I am 22 years old, Dad says I have the mind of a nine year old, so I qualify for PPT-K and the Virtual Prayer Rallies. At Virtual Prayer Rally II I won the Agnus Dei speed-prayer competition. I beat the long standing record of 6.73 seconds for open litany. Here’s the litany:
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, grant us peace.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, help Mr. Chertoff.
In just 3.69 seconds I spoke open litany the fastest…ever! Many people couldn’t understand me because I was praying so fast…but the judges were impressed and awarded me the Lamb of God Trophy. Though I trained really hard for Virtual Prayer Rally II, breaking the record took a lot out of me. I turned bright red, had an explosive headache and drooled all over my speed-prayer coach. He rushed me to the prayer-rally mobile and got me to McDonalds really fast for a Happy Meal. Though the Happy Meal made me feel better, my speed-prayer coach was disappointed in my delivery. He said I wasn’t up to Agnus Dei Level 4 ability. He said aside from shaving off a few hundredths of second, I needed to be better understood. He said I slurred on the second Lamb of God and I didn’t drive home the last Lamb of God. Then he played the video of my performance. He was right. What a monstrous display. I could have done better. And I’ll have to do better in order to compete at Prayer Brawl 2006. For this I’ll have to up the intensity of my speed-prayer katas. The next day after winning the Lamb of God Trophy, many parents felt I shouldn’t have won. They accused me of injecting speed-prayer enhancers, or, as we say in the industry, holy juice. Well it wasn’t true…I’m just a speed-prayer prodigy. But I wasn’t afraid so I let them retest me. They probed the shit out of me and found nothing! I knew the accusations came from parents of PPT-K Agnus Dei Level 2 pukes vying for my Level 3 status. Pathetic! I’ll out pray any kidskin postulate. I’m even more fast and furious when cornered. They don’t realize they’re dealing with one savvy supplicant. Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, tell my competition to get bent! Vengeance is a dish best served with my prayer up your ass! Sorry, I’m starting to cuss again. I take meds for that. Funny thing is the meds make me talk really fast. I can’t even think straight…like my thoughts move slow but my mouth moves at the speed of light…I’m not sure…I just don’t fricken get it. Good thing no one is home…If Dad heard me, he’d throw me in the neighbor’s pool again…which really sucks because that fricken pool hasn’t had water in it for five years. Why can’t they just put some water in the pool? Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, can you just put some fricken water in the pool? Yeah…I prayed that…really fast, and really hard, late into the night…and guess what? The fricken levees broke. Jesus…! Holy…! That’s not what I meant. I said the neighbor’s pool. So I whipped out a rush speed-prayer: Lamb of God, who floods New Orleans, get FEMA off its ass. Nothing. So swiftly: Lamb of Dipshit, who apparently is the sin in the dirty ass water of New Orleans, what the…? Still nothing…but I am praying fast…praying at warp ten thousand. Soon my speed-prayers will be fast enough to travel back in time. That’s right, time-travel speed-praying. But when I’m not time-travel speed-praying, me and my friends go to the PPT-Kids website and fart around. But we’re kids so we have some questions about the website: What is “vulnerability to future attack?” What is “cyber terrorism?” What is “weapons of mass destruction?” Yeah…you guessed it: we’re just fricken kids…so we all have nightmares and wet the bed. So we have slumber-night communions where we time-travel speed-pray late into the night:
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, protect us from vulnerability to future attack.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, don’t cyber terrorize us.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, don’t nuke us dead.
But anyway, I just wanted to say Presidential Prayer Team Kids don’t do voodoo. We pray. And even though you make fun of us, we’re praying for you…praying fast…praying hard…like a machine…because we’re vulnerable, terrorized and don’t want no hurricane-nukes dropping us into empty pools. Capiche?
September 14th, 2005 at 5:57 pm
Kiddo, have you ever heard the expression, “God helps those who help themselves”????
Its a pretty good one…. It means if you pay for the levies new orleans wont be destroyed if you don’t it has nothin to do with god. It is just more human idiocy. As for lamb of god bit i have 1 word for you…. Mmmmm veal!!!
Please don’t pray for me if i think i need praying for i will do it myself.
Religion is a gift kiddo, something humans make. The idea is that it should give us hope and moral grounding ie love everyone regardless of religion race or sexual preference, innocent and guilty alike. It is for the higher powers to pick and choose who to favor. (On the off chance there are any) You can’t stop hurricanes and you can’t stop psycho fundimentalist nut jobs hell bent on destroying the twin towers. They are going to do what they are going to do. What you CAN control is how you react to it and how you deal with it. That is all. I understand it is comforting to be so narcisistic as to believe that if we work hard enough we can stop terrorism and natural disasters. The truth is we can’t.
What we CAN do is help the environment instead of continueing to damage which is something Bush is too dumb to realize. No amount of praying is gonna close the hole in the ozone. No amount of preying is gonna convert the terrorists to christians that give away their oil for free when they are starving and desperate in devistated countries.
As for voodoo, it works atleast as well as prayer. Being a pagan i practice something semi similar nature based religio But i wont be praying to my goddess for anyone who does not expressly request it.
Religion was created to unite peoplethrough the gift of hope. Today we beat eachother with it constantly. I am not gonna express my opinions just the facts. more wars have been fought in the name of god than in any other name. No god that is proud of that fact and encourages such wars deserves anyone’s prayers.
If you want to help do something usefull give money to green peace organization instead of reciting poetry about lambs as fast as you can for a prize. Do you see how small that is? It acomplishes nothing but the inflamation of your ego. It doesn’t save the starving. Nor repair the levies or anything else of use. pleasuse your brain instead of being an ignorant.
September 15th, 2005 at 1:48 am
Well said. I agree with everything you said. Forgive me if I offended. That wasn’t my intention. The above piece I wrote was meant as satire, or if you will, a parody. When I went to the Presidential Prayer Team for Kids website ( http://pptkids.org/ ) I was shocked…shocked that this propaganda existed: it looks like the cover graphics for a Happy Meal Box. The PPT-K Agnus Dei (Latin for lamb of god) Level is made up. The Lamb of God Trophy is made up. Speed-Praying is made up. Prayer Brawl is made up. Speed-prayer katas is made up. All of it was made up and absurd…a natural reaction on my part reflecting the absurdity of the idea of Presidential Prayer Teams. I find it revolting that anyone would sanction the use of the website for children. However, Virtual Prayer Rally was not made up…it’s right on the website. After perusing the site I was shocked again by the statements about Mr. Chertoff and what he does: “With his team, he also works to protect America by reducing our vulnerability to future attack, weapons of mass destruction and cyber terrorism.” My first thought and reaction to that was: “Those subjects are for kids?” It’s a double edged sword. On the one edge, fear is instilled in the child by these horrifying topics splashed on screens and print media and so-called Terror Alert Level status. On the other edge, “It’s ok kid…relax…the grown-ups have everything in control. Just look at our pretty site…it’s so happy. And look! Mr. Chertoff is there. Mr. Bush is there. All these stalwart fella’s doing stuff for you and your protection…bla…bla…bla…” What a manipulative mind f**k. So for a moment I put myself in the shoes of one messed up Presidential Prayer Team Kid who really believes in the power of prayer. He wants to continue to believe despite the cruel world of the adults around him spurning him on to be a great prayer-team player. But his prayers just bring more disasters on himself. He thinks he’s helping himself and the world by praying, just like all the other poor manipulated children who are continually thrown into the empty pool…that is, a world ruled by fear, and therefore, devoid of soul. Mandy, you said: “more wars have been fought in the name of god than in any other name. No god that is proud of that fact and encourages such wars deserves anyone’s prayers.” That’s brilliant.
So again, I apologize. It was a parody. I should have mentioned that in the first place. I’ve saved your retort because it’s exactly what I would’ve said.
September 15th, 2005 at 5:43 am
Hi Barry and Mandy. I’m not giving Mandy a hard time, because humor can be a bit hard to pick up on in the blogosphere - I’ve missed it myself on many occasions. Barry was so apologetic though that I did want him to know that I got his parody - it was funny!
September 15th, 2005 at 9:36 am
It was brilliant, in fact…
-cvj
September 15th, 2005 at 10:05 am
hehehe well i feel stupid… Yes i did miss it… Sorry i am american i don’t know where the rest of you are from. And i can honestly say that though i live in one of the best educated areas in the country that i have seen some pretty fucked up stuff… from religious nuts. Soooo it didn’t strike me as funny initially it hit pretty hard as just horrifying. religion is a scary thing in the wrong hands… or in the hands of an extremist and a complete idiot. I have had enough demagogery i think Katrina demands impeachment not prayers. One doesn’t need to be a scientist to know that Bush’s brain cells are all dead. Simple observation tells us that… hell we don’t even need to do any kind of real testing… Its actually completely depressing what is happening. Very disheartening. In the closed minded town i grew up in that screeches how liberal it is because alot of very rich jewish people happen to live there, had an event…. about “parent’s Rights” in the public schools. I cried. It was a hate festival of gays and lesbians… Not long ago a parent was cuffed and dragged away from his kindergarten son’s school when he threw a semi violent tantrum because he happened to be born again and the teacher had the audacity to read a book about different kinds of families including 2 mother households. Now everyone is up in arms because they feel he was arrested for his beliefs…. he asaulted the principal for goddess sake. He was arrested for being unreasonable belligerant nuts and asault. it had nothing to even do with the beliefs he held. Sooo in the wake of all this your humor scared the piss out of me.